First things first… They will not share what you have purchased because that would be a little embarrassing if you bought some sort of sexy toys for a retreat with your girlfriend or wife and all your friends knew about it. Just saying. Go to the Amazon Facebook setup page and link your account. As soon as you get in, you get recommendations for products depending on what your likes, interests, favorites and key words from your profile.

One of the coolest features is seeing when your friends birthdays are and the gift suggestions they have for those people. So not only do you get to be reminded of up coming birthdays but you dont have to stress about what you are going to buy for them. In a pinch this is going to save people.

I connected my FB page with Amazon and its pretty cool. I love seeing all the recommendations as well as things i’d be interested in. Now I just need to go shopping! lol… I wonder if they are going to integrate a chat system so you can invite people to come help you pick something out. Directly from their signup page, here’s what they have to say:

Will my personal Amazon data remain private?

Your personal Amazon data will not be shared with Facebook:

• Amazon will not share information from your account with Facebook.
• Amazon will not share your purchase history with Facebook.
• Amazon will not attempt to contact your Facebook friends.
• Amazon will never post anything to your Facebook Wall without your consent.

For more information about Amazon’s privacy practices, please see our Privacy Notice.

For information about application and profile access, please visit Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

What are the benefits of connecting Amazon and Facebook?

Tap into your Facebook network to improve your Amazon shopping experience:

• Discover Amazon recommendations for movies, music, and more based on your Facebook Favorites and Likes.
• See upcoming birthdays and find your Facebook friends’ Amazon Wish Lists more easily.
• Get great gift suggestions for your friends based on their Facebook Favorites and Likes.
• Explore your friends’ Favorites and see who has similar interests.

EA is holding a massive $0.99 sale on over a dozen titles. The sale will only last 48 hours, so you have to act now! Here’s the list of games that are for sale:

$.99 for the first time

Command & Conqure™ Red Alert™ (was $6.99)
FIFA 10 by EA Sports™ (was $4.99)
Madden NFL 10 by EA Sports (was $6.99)
Need for Speed Shift (was $6.99)
Need For Speed™ Undercover (was $4.99)
SimCity™ (was $2.99)
Dragon’s Lair (was $4.99)
Jewel Quest Mysteries: Curse of the Emerald Tear (was $2.99)
Trivial Pursuit (was $4.99)

$.99 once or several time before

NBA Live by EA Sports (was $2.99)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour ® by EA Sports™ (was $2.99)
Battleship (was $1.99)
Connect 4 (was $2.99)
Surviving High School (was $2.99)
The Game of Life Classic Edition (was $1.99)
Clue (was $1.99)
Yahtzee™ Adventures (was $2.99)

While all the games are good values for only $0.99, I’d probably say Need for Speed: Shift is the “must get” game from the list. It has frequently been cited as one of the best racing games for the iPhone, so it’s a good one to have. All of the old school board games are also great to have if you love those family style games. Needless to say I bought about 8 of them!

I’m actually really excited about this. Not only do we get to enjoy the release of a magazine or comic but also you get it instantly. I’m not one for waiting on things and I believe that in our current economic status this is true across many other mediums.

Here are some things that I am really hoping to see come alive very soon. First off are interactive comics. Stories have multiple endings as well as different versions of the road to get there. Many times you are stuck with the view of one character, waiting to see what’s in stored for that cliffhanger but with live interactions you can really pick and choose where to go.

Secondly, you can really engage an audience with audio and visual cues. So for comic books add in various sound effects or even have someone read the graphic novel to you. For video you can link right out to the different clips you are referencing, you can set up specific animations to help tell your story. For the news papers you can link right to the live stream or already told news. Your images can really come alive and add subtle little motion to stills just to really wow a user.

These few things already create an experience like no other when you have such interaction. I know a lot of people say that they love the feeling of a book and bent corners, dirt and grime… well how about an app that reacts to where you close your book it folds pages. Over the course of time your book sees more and more wear on it. It’s a simple solution for the purest.

It’s interesting to see so many new articles now that detail how the magazine market is on the rise because of the iPad. While I’m sitting here on the plane to LA I peaked over to see some reading on this exact topic. It’s only a taste of what’s to come and the companies that rely on press can move to digital and we should see fewer publications shutting their doors. The iPad is a revolution for the rebirth of what was to be an extinct medium in today’s time.

Drop a note or go over to my contact page to send me an email. Thx for reading.

The first game we are going to show is Battle of the Immortals. The game is already in open beta and is really picking up a lot of traction. We’ve expanded to new servers and just really spent a lot of time listening to the user. The development teams are in-game, on the live servers listening.

The game is a lot of fun to play and visually stunning too. You start off and before you really know it you are at level 20 doing your first instance. This is definitely my favorite game we have! Its a fast pace Action MMO RPG that really hooks you off the top! A big focus is also the ‘Soul Gear’. The creative team really sat down and thought through each piece and how it looks, Animates and skills your character. Here’s a the Open beta trailer and a ‘BOI Blueprint’ of the Magus character Soul Gear.

Battle of the Immortals – Open Beta Gameplay Trailer from Lukasz Pason on Vimeo.

Battle of the Immortals Blueprint – Magus from Lukasz Pason on Vimeo.

The next game is Heroes of Three Kingdoms. This game is really based more on PVP with its campaigns. You do a campaign that has a player limit of 60 people!! Madness… Inside HoTK you get to choose to be part of the Wei, Shu or Wu and lead your character through defending you kingdom. Its unique in the way that the economy is really based on which kingdom is ruling the lands. So its very interactive with the community! Here is the teaser for HoTK:

Heroes of Three Kingdoms Teaser from Lukasz Pason on Vimeo.

Lastly we are going to reveal our game play trailer for Forsaken World. Its already in closed beta in China but we finally got our hands on the client and the game is really polished! I ill update and post it once we get back from E3!

As for the gear thats going with me to E3, its a pretty small but awesome kit! We just purchased the Canon 7D with a kit lens, the 24-135. We have the beachtek DXA-5Da for sound recording and the Sennhesier Evolution Wireless Mic Packs. All of this fits nice and snug into a little Pelican 1400 case. I really wish that this kit was my own. Its such a great run and gun setup. Once thing we might be missing is a shotgun microphone but I think I might have a solution for that… Here are a few shots of the toys I get to play with!!!

[View with PicLens]

So JamHub is a piece of hardware that links you and your fellow band mates together. Sounds like a mixer right… well its more. You have your choice of 4-6 people being able to play at the same time (3 different units), Each person has their own controls for their headphones as well as controlling the volume of the other people around you. This alone is amazing and then they took it to the next level. You have a SD card input so you can hit record directly on the unit and record your jam sessions. Not only does it have a SD card slot but it also has a USB out so you can run it into your sequencer or any other recording software, (No midi mapping or separate channel recording). JamHub also gave you some of the most common effects such as delay, reverb and modulation for some added fun to your jam sessions. They actually left out an EQ because they dont want this unit to be something that alters the sound, just a solid unit to join you all together. One thing that I really like about it is that the knobs have two levels, one is for the effects and one is for the gain. So each one of the knobs on has its own controls for each person individually.

Overall, they really thought about people who need to do a lot with very little. They have three models, the ‘BedRoom’, ‘GreenRoom’ and ‘TourBus’. Basically 4-6 people at the same time. And drummers… Mic your set to and run it to a mixer and send the mains to the JamHub to give everyone stereo drums in their headphones!! Also, they have remotes, yes remotes that you can addon so that you can have all the controls in the palm of your hand instead of walking over to the main unit! All in all… I wish I had one of these when I was 16!

Superstructure Statistics
Across stage width across bases: 64m (210’)
Up/down stage width across bases: 48.5m (159’)
Height of the superstructure: 30m (100’)
Height to lightning conductor (tip of pylon): 51.8m (170’)
Clear span across stage: 57.5m (189’)
Clear span up/down stage: 41.5m (136’)
Height to underside octagon truss: 25m (82’)
Tip to tip length of pylon: 43m (141’)
Total unloaded weight of superstructure: 190 tons
Total production load applied to superstructure: 176 tons

Stage Statistics
Ellipse major axis: 22.5m (74’)
Ellipse minor axis: 15.5m (51’)
Height 2.5m: (8’ 3”)
Under-stage tech area (including under upstage runway): 289m² (2900’²)

B Stage Runway Statistics
Ellipse major axis: 53m (174’)
Ellipse minor axis: 46m (151’)
Width: 2.4m (8’)
Height: 1.3m (4’ 4”)
Circumference on centerline: 147.5m (484’)

Just incase you dont want to read about crazy numbers, here are some pictures of the largest set design, ever!

(photos from barco.com)

U2 360 Stage

Full Color U2 Stage

U2 360 Stage

Dave Chappelle’s live performance at Pioneer Square was not a PR move, he was not accompanied by security guards, he did not have producers all around him calling shots, it was native, naked, true raw comedy by the artist to the people. Just to rewind incase you dont know, Dave Chappelle started out with a movie that is still famous, “Half Baked” where he stars as a stoner, finds a girl, his best friend gets locked up in jail for killing a horse and they raise money through selling medical marijuana. Its a true must see movie. Later on in life he got his own show, “The Chappelle Show” featured exclusively on Comedy Central. A show where he did some gut busting comedy through real life events or just imitating some of the latest news… also a must watch.

Now that you know a little about him you should tune into this video clip of his over 2 hour long performance. I cant express enough how pure and raw something like this is. He got there at about 12:53am, walked up to the little stage they have for summer events at Pioneer Square, turn on his first time guitar player lunchbox size amp that was only heard by the first few rows of people and cast off on his comedic trip. Since we all know how much cops love to harass people and ruin all the fun, they didnt. He even addressed it by saying, “Portland Police were kind enough not to arrest me”.

Directly from Oregonlive.com here is how the wild fire event of this performance escalated to being over 4000 people strong!

// begin oregonlive.com //

Local35 clothing store owner Justin Machus wasn’t at his Hawthorne Avenue boutique at 4:58 p.m. when he logged onto Facebook with his phone to update his status to reflect that Chappelle was shopping in the store, taking advantage of “double rewards” day for frequent shoppers.

“David Chapelle in my store an I’m not there!!!!,” he wrote.

Then Machus, who shifts frequently between updating Facebook and posting short comments on Twitter, turned to Twitter. “Dave Chappelle has a Local35 rewards card!… I wasn’t here… “

Moments later, a friend replied to his Facebook status change: “what?? i heard about a secret show tonight??”

Machus responded 10 minutes after his original post. “Yeah! Free standup, Midnight tonight at Pioneer Place! he was on his way to buy an amp for the show! He bought a few things!”

For good measure, Machus repeated the news on his Local35 Twitter page. “Free Dave Chappelle standup at midnight tonight at Pioneer Square!!!”

Two hours later, one of his 334 followers, Scott Serchen of San Rafael, Calif., posting as “hiveprojects,” responded: “forrealz?”

Machus quickly replied: “It was from his mouth. He said to spread the word.”

Then Machus added, “This may be getting out of hand.”

A few minutes later, at 7:17 p.m., Machus was worried.

“This is out of hand. Poop.”

Later still, dressed in a white shirt and carrying purple Master Piece cycle bag into the crowded Pioneer Courthouse Square, he updated Facebook again: “this is getting crazy.”

He turned to Twitter: “Dave is here, massive crowd judgement fail. no sound system other than a battery powered Vox amp.”

Then after midnight, back to Facebook: “Dave is seeking out a better soundsysten. Didn’t expect this crowd.”

He returned to Twitter: “This might get ugly. Bad energy brewing.”

An hour later: “Easily, one of the strangest events in my Portland history. Blame it on me and other Twitter people?Hope not.”

Shortly after 4 a.m., Machus wrapped up the night with this post: “that was a bizarre evening with Chapelle. Blame it on Twitter? Quite the social networking experiment.”

// end oregonlive.com //

An event this strong is something we all may dream of and in the not distant past, it took months of planning and promotions to make it happen but in the way of web three (we are WAY past web 2.0) social marketing is the future for event marketing and social interaction. The better bonus to this is that we can save some trees and with all the print that would have had to happen to make something like this be true.

[media id=1 width=480 height=360]

On a side note… if you want to sign up, please do! It would be great to have  you all build a community around the random content that I talk about and soon, I want to get some artists and other writers to submit as well. Much Thanks!

Cheers!

Lukasz

Since I have VM Ware running Vista Ultimate, I can use the browser and really see how it compares to Safari on OSX as well as Firefox. Off the bat its hits really nice for me. The U.I. is delicious. The colors are warm and the typeface that they chose is timeless. Choosing to layout the tabs on top vs. below your typical search and various toolbars is different but welcoming. Its such a perfect flow, the tab is clear, the address/search bar is right under it with your typical forward, back, refresh buttons and below that you have all your bookmarks. For those of you that ran Safari 4 beta you are familiar with this, (I want it back with the official release!). I like the way the taps slide in when you create a new tab and how smooth they are. You can drag them in and out and re-arrange them all by clicking and dragging. There are a few other features such as inconito mode, the advanced downloads and application windows (creates a desktop bookmark and launches the web app or site into Chrome) that really just add that much more dynamic to this simple browser.

With the announcement of Google Chrome OS, it makes me really itch to know more about it. Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba are all working with Google to lead the giant into the operating system realm. All these little and giant companies have low-power chipsets and I wonder if that was a big decision in not adding Dell and Sony to the mix. Since they are partnering with Adobe, is the OS going to be running heavy in Action Script and Flash? (I hope so!) What really intrigues me is that his is going to be a Free OS and its going to be based around their web browser which I think is very interesting. In today’s market you are seeing more apps coming to the cloud like photoshop express, indabamusic.com which is an online music session recording site, googles own spreadsheets and word docs and so many more it really makes sense to have an OS that is not heavy, almost featureless on your desktop and full of everything you need in the cloud. In my opinion this is what Web 3.0 is going to be.